MOSCOW, August 13. /TASS/. Russian assault groups seized two Ukrainian army strongholds in the Kupyansk area over the past day in the special military operation in Ukraine, Spokesman for Russia’s Battlegroup West Sergey Zybinsky told TASS on Sunday.

"During the battles in the Kupyansk direction, assault groups of the 6th combined arms army seized two strongholds, three observation posts and defeated an infantry platoon near the settlement of Olshana," the spokesman said.

The Ukrainian military attempted two counter-attacks by units of the 41st separate mechanized and 95th separate airborne brigades on Russian positions near the settlement of Sinkovka and the Mankovka natural area in order to regain its lost positions, he said.

"All the counter-attacks were successfully repulsed. The enemy’s losses amounted to a platoon of manpower," the spokesman said.

In addition, Russian heavy flamethrower systems delivered a strike against a stronghold of the Ukrainian army’s 14th separate mechanized brigade near the settlement of Sinkovka. A reconnaissance and assault squad wiped out a Polish-made Krab self-propelled artillery gun by a Lancet loitering munition in the Shevstov Yar area, he added.

In the defense line of the battlegroup’s 1st tank army, enemy assault groups from the 32nd and 44th separate mechanized brigades carried out two attacks on Russian troops near the settlement of Novosyolovskoye. The battlegroup’s artillery inflicted damage on the enemy, eliminating a platoon of adversary manpower, the spokesman said.